Fixing Prices

A Century of Setting, Posting and Adjusting Retail Prices

Franck Cochoy, Professor of Sociology, University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, and Senior Fellow, Institut Universitaire de France, France, Johan Hagberg, Professor of Business Administration Specialising in Marketing, University of Gothenburg and Hans Kjellberg, Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing and Strategy, Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden

Shedding light on a range of price fixing mechanisms and price display technologies, this incisive book offers a clear overview of the retail price setting, posting and adjusting processes. Based on a detailed study of a century of pricing practices in the US retail sector, it explores the anthropology and sociology of valuation practices by concentrating on the way prices are fabricated.

‘Fixing Prices reveals how retail shopping was transformed by the posting of prices through the invention of new techniques and technology. The book delightfully captures how these innovations had to be learned by store owners, sold to customers, and created new and unforeseen opportunities. We now take these innovations for granted but as the authors suggest, they continue in the digital age to evolve in startling ways.’
——尼尔·d·Fligstein Californ大学ia, Berkeley, US

‘Markets are built on price setting. Yet we don’t know how price setting works. Drawing on brilliant scholarship from three leading scientists of our times, Fixing Prices is the first book that gives a definitive answer. A must read for anyone who wants to understand what makes a price.’
– Koray Caliskan, The New School, US